Grenfell Engulfed

In spite of recent refurbishments – fireproofed? –Grenfell Tower was engulfed in flames the full lengthOf its eyesore height ringed by brown-brick mansion blocks(Much better Thirties relics of curvaceous art deco);Now Grenfell Tower is a blackened jagged toothOn the smoking skyline – but still, by night, a whole day afterThe main blaze, orange flames flickered from insideLike the glows from pumpkin lamps lit up at Halloween parties –And those broken charred windows now glareLike the zigzagged grimaces of pumpkins' carved mouths,Once the candles have been snuffed out in their hollowed pulps.

This gutted, lugubrious building burnished black is nowNothing more than a charnel house, those still missingAmong its tenants now presumed consumed in smoke,Burnt out of their tenancies, cremated in their flats, noSpontaneous combustion of a faulty fridge aloneCould have caused such rapid conflagration – no, thoseRefurbishments last year had not been properly fireproofed,In fact, were done more for external aestheticsThan for the benefit of the residents' wellbeing or safety,Simply to prettify the outside of the towerblockTo blend better in with its salubrious surroundingsOf the rich part of Kensington – well now the towerHas been prettified by fire, Kensington's well-rinsedCan survey, instead, a fuming burnt offering, a blackSmouldering monument in Brutalist anthracite,A colossal sooty cactus scorched in the hottest JuneSince '76 (when millions of ladybirds coated Brighton beach).

Landlords, maintenance agents, Tory councillors and ToryMPs had unknowingly conspired to lay in placeThe components for a catastrophe predicted by the Tenants’Association, their complaints and warnings ignored byThe men in grey suits at Westminster, and at KensingtonAnd Chelsea Council – why would any authority listen to the concernsOf social housing tenants with no stakes in anything,Not even the right to justice, courtesy of legal aid cuts,600 impoverished people cooped up in high-piled compartments,Many trapped on benefits through no faults of their own,Or caught in the Russian roulette of zero-hours contracts,Reliant on food banks, many Arabs, Muslims, immigrants,Asylum-seekers and refugees among their numbers,Those whose lives are deemed verboten by tabloids,Now their homes more than metaphorically put to the ToryTorch – hindsight haunts Kensington: outside sprinklersCould have been retrofitted, should have been, in fact.

Now after the flames, the blame games: whose grossNegligence lit this tinder box, what cultural drift of anti-Immigrant rhetoric ignited the match? The flammablePadding in the new zinc cladding apparently helped the flamesCatch! The yellow helmets say they've never seen anythingLike this before... The tower protrudes as a combustibleSymbol of the vulnerability of the disadvantaged,Never have so many people perished for a metaphor,The surviving tenants are spitting tar, now homeless,Will they be given permanent shelter? Some survivorsVoice fears that Kensington and Chelsea CouncilWill take advantage of the tragedy to decant the tenantsElsewhere and refurbish the tower block (and properlyFireproof it this time, presumably) to house better-heeledPrivate tenants – Grenfell gentrified by fire? The arms-Length maintenance organisation might have a handIn this, more profits for future, while tight-lipped ministersOf an arms-length Government avoid the gazesOf camera lenses, mute in suits; and a spinelessPrime Minister is photographed skulking awkwardly in blackAmong the uniforms, looking like the rich distantRelative at the funeral keeping apart from her mourningPoor relations; while Jeremy Corbyn responds more promptly,Goes among the families of the missing, comforting them,Hugging those who are denied even the vent of grievingFor not yet knowing if their bereavement is temporaryOr permanent, surviving relatives who catch on the grapevineOf drip-fed information that the bodies still insideMight be so badly burnt they'll not be able to be identified –Forced out by fire, is this how Grenfell's gentrified?